I can’t help but laugh and feel sentimental as Colton finishes explaining the whole alphabet comment he’d made earlier. The lighthearted sound from Colton makes me content, causes me to remember the dark days in the hospital when all I wanted was to hear that sound again, and the request is out of my mouth before I think twice. “Can we have ice cream for breakfast?”

Colton’s hand stills on my thigh as he stutters out a laugh. “What?” I love the look on his face right now. Carefree, careless, and unburdened from the secrets that are no longer between us.

I just smile at him lying on his side next to me as I adjust the pillow behind me and lie back, sighing, his amused eyes still staring at me. Music plays overhead as I shrug at him, suddenly feeling silly for my comment. It’s just that I feel like everything is coming full circle. Things I said I wanted to do, I needed to do, promises I made when he was lying in that hospital bed, I need to keep.

“Yes, ice cream for breakfast,” I tell him, wincing as I move and my panties tug on the bandage over my new tattoo—the tattoo my mother is going to kill me over when she finds out about it. But the sudden startled look in his eyes pulls me from my thoughts and causes me to lean forward to look at him closer, curious as to what just put it there. He stares back at me momentarily, and then after blinking his eyes a few times as if he’s trying to figure something out, he just shakes his head and smiles at me, melting my heart, and confirming that I have absolutely no regrets.

About being with him or the tattoo I just got to prove it.

Of the ups and the downs that our relationship has gone through, endured, persevered, and come out stronger for.

None of it, because it brought us here to this point—right here, right now.

Healing together and loving one another.

Taking the first steps toward our future.

He angles his head on his hand propped on his elbow beneath him and quirks his lips. “Well, what the woman wants, the woman gets.”

“I like the sound of that,” I say, wiggling my hips, “because I have a whole lot of wants, Mr. Donavan.”

“Oh really? And what might those be?” He raises his eyebrows, a lascivious smile tugging at one corner of his mouth as he leans forward and presses a soft kiss to the edge of my bandage. He looks up at me, lust and so much more dancing in the depths of his eyes as he slowly crawls his way up my body until his lips are inches from mine.

And my God, do I want to lean in and taste those lips and feel my skin hum to life from his touch, but I opt for one more request before losing myself in him, to him. “For dinner, I want—”

“Pancakes.” Colton finishes my sentence. “Ice cream for breakfast and pancakes for dinner. I remember hearing you say that.” His voice is filled with awed reverence as my heart soars at the revelation that he heard me when he was unconscious in the hospital. I watch him try to process everything with a soft shake of his head. “You talked a lot,” he murmurs, leaning closer to my lips but not touching, and I know he’s smiling because I can see the lines bunch around his eyes.

“So we have our menu planned for tomorr—”

Colton leans forward and captures my mouth with his in a soft kiss. “It’s time to stop talking, Ryles,” he says as he leans back to look me in the eyes, humor and unguarded love reflected in them.

“Colton,” I say, arching my back to try and brush my breasts against his bare chest because everything in my body at this moment is desperate for his touch, his taste, the connection between us. And when he stays still and doesn’t move, I reach out and grab the back of his neck, trying to pull him into me, but he doesn’t move.

He just remains motionless, staring at me with such intensity. And for the first time I understand what he meant when he told me I was the first one to ever really see him—to see into the depths of his soul—because right now there’s nothing I can hide from him. Absolutely nothing. Our connection is that strong, that irrefutable.

It’s been such an emotional evening, more so for him than for me, but my body is humming for a physical release. It’s vibrating with need and all I want is him.

“Rylee …” It’s that one word plea of my name on his lips that gets me every time.

“Don’t Rylee me,” I implore as I watch concern edge the desire from his eyes. I move my hands to frame his cheeks and hold him still so he has no option but to hear me. “I’m fine, Colton.”

“I’m so afraid I’m going to hurt you …” His voice fades and the concern that floods it makes every part of me slip further under his tidal wave of love.

“No, baby, no. You’re not going to hurt me.” I lean forward and brush my lips to his and then lean back until I can see his eyes again. “You not wanting to be with me, that hurts me. Destroys me. I need you, Colton, every side of you—physical and emotional. After tonight, after we’ve stripped away everything that’s been keeping us apart, I need to share this with you. Connect in every way possible because it’s the only way I can truly show you how I feel about you. Show you what you do to me.”

I can hear his shuddered exhale moments before the heat of it hits my lips. His hand flexes on my bicep and then softens as if he wants and then doesn’t want at the same moment. He just stares at me, indecision written across his face. And then that muscle pulses in his jaw, his last tell of resistance, because the desire clouding his eyes tells me his decision has already been made.

When he leans in to kiss me, I don’t think victory has ever tasted so sweet.

His lips brush softly against mine, once, twice, and then his tongue delves between my lips and licks against mine. He slides his hands behind my back and gathers me against him while our tongues dance a seductive ballet. His hands find their way beneath the hem of my shirt and then tease my bare skin as he draws my shirt up and over my head.

A soft sigh escapes my lips as we part so my shirt can clear my face and then our lips find each other’s again. I release my tangled grip on the back of his hair and scrape my fingernails down the steeled muscles of his biceps, his body responding, tensing to my touch. The guttural moan he emits from the back of his throat turns me on, entices me, has me wanting and needing more.

Desire coils and need springs with each passing second, my thighs clenching together, my breath coming faster. “Colton,” I murmur as his lips travel down my jawline to the pleasure point just beneath my ear that has me arching my back and moaning out loud on contact, heated warmth on willing flesh. His hands scrape over my rib cage and cup my breasts, already weighted with desire. Sensations spiral into and then through every part of me.

“Fuck, Ry, you test a man’s control. I’ve been craving the taste of that sweet pussy of yours. That sound you make when I bury my cock in you. The feel of you coming around me.”

He groans as I slide my hands between his shorts and grip his heated flesh. And as incendiary as his words are, as much as they stoke the fires already raging out of control, there’s an added tenderness in his touch that’s a stark contrast to their explicitness.

“I want every inch of you trembling, fucking shaking, begging for me to take you, Ry, because fuck if I won’t be doing the same. I want to be your sigh, your moan, your cry out in pleasure and every fucking sound in between.” He leans in and nips my lip, and I can feel him quiver, and know that he’s just as affected as I am.

“I want to feel you. Your fingernails digging into my shoulders. Your thighs tense around mine as I drive you closer.” He breathes out, the dominance of his tone fringed with a raw necessity has my entire body vibrating with need. “I want to see your toes curl as they push against my chest. Want to watch your mouth fall open and your eyes close when it becomes too much—the pleasure so fucking intense—because, baby, I want to know I make you feel that way. I want to know you feel just as fucking alive inside as you make me.”

And I can’t take it anymore, his words the most seductive foreplay for my body that’s already craving his touch. I pull him toward me, hesitancy a distant memory. Our bodies and hearts crash together as we fall back on the bed beneath us as hands and mouths explore, taste, and tempt.

I force him on his back by scoring my nails down his chest, his muscles tensing and throat humming with a desperate groan. My mouth traces a languorous trail down the line of his neck, over the ridged muscles of his abdomen scrunching and flexing with each lick of my tongue or scrape of my fingers. I kiss my way down one side of his sexy as hell V and then back up the other side, cautious of his freshly tattooed rib cage as my fingertips find and encircle his steeled length through his shorts.

I look up and meet his eyes, clouded with desire and weighted with emotion, as I pull down his shorts. I kiss my way down the tiny line of hair and then move down and tease the crest of his dick with the wet, warmth of my lips. His cock pulses against my lips as he hisses out, “Fuck!” The drawn out way he says the word encourages me to take him further into my mouth, and press my tongue to the underside as I slide down and take him deeper.

His hands sitting idly on the bed clench into fists, and his hips twitch as I slide him back out until just his tip is in my mouth. I roll my tongue around it, paying special attention to the nerves on the underside, before sliding back down until he hits the back of my throat. In an instant, his hands are fisting my hair as pleasure overtakes him. “Sweet Christ,” he pants out between labored breaths as I continue to work him with my mouth. “So fucking good.”